By Raya Jalabi
DUBAI (Reuters) – Five people who have committed crimes in Saudi Arabia as minors have yet to have their death sentences revoked, according to two human rights groups, nine months after the kingdom’s Human Rights Commission (HRC) announced the end capital punishment for young offenders.
The state-backed HRC cited in April a royal March decree from King Salman stipulating that individuals sentenced to death for crimes committed as minors would no longer be executed and would instead serve up to 10 years in prison in detention centers. juvenile.
The statement does not specify a deadline, but in October, in response to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), it said the decree went into effect immediately after the announcement.
The decree was never published in the state media or published in the official gazette, as would be normal practice.
In December, the state news agency SPA published a list of prominent 2020 “events”, presenting several royal decrees, but the death penalty order was not included.
Organizations including the anti-death penalty group Reprieve, HRW and the European-Saudi Organization for Human Rights (ESOHR), as well as a group of US lawmakers, have raised concerns that gaps in Saudi law may still allow judges impose the death sentence on juvenile offenders.
One of the five appealed and eight face charges that could result in execution, said the groups, who follow the cases closely.
Reuters established the situation for three of the five individuals through HRC statements, but was unable to independently verify the other two.
The government’s International Communications Center (CIC) dismissed the concerns, telling Reuters that the royal decree would be applied retroactively to all cases where an individual was sentenced to death for crimes committed under the age of 18.
“The Royal Order issued in March 2020 came into effect immediately after it was issued and was distributed to the competent authorities for instant implementation,” said the CIC in an emailed statement.
ALL EYES ON RIYADH
Saudi Arabia, whose human rights record came under global scrutiny following the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in 2018, is one of the world’s leading executioners after Iran and China, human rights groups say.
Its de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known internationally as MbS, had strong support from the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
But President-elect Joe Biden, who takes over the White House later this week, described the kingdom as an “outcast” under his copyright and said he would take a tougher line.
Six US lawmakers wrote to the Saudi embassy in the United States in October asking the kingdom to review all ongoing death penalty cases to identify individuals convicted of crimes committed when they were children, according to a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
One of the signatories, Democratic Representative Tom Malinowski, told Reuters in December that if the kingdom went ahead with the execution of juvenile offenders, “it would make it even more difficult for Saudi Arabia to return to the kind of relationship it wants with the United States. “
He added that Biden would be looking at the kingdom’s human rights policies “very differently from Trump.”
Biden officials declined to comment on this article, but referred to Reuters in an earlier statement saying the new government would reevaluate US ties to Saudi Arabia.
DISPUTED FIGURES
Ali al-Nimr and Dawood al-Marhoun were 17 when they were arrested in 2012 on charges related to participation in widespread protests in the eastern Shi’ite-dominated province. Abdullah al-Zaher was 15 when he was arrested.
The three, who are among the five lowest offenders whose death penalty has yet to be revoked, were sentenced to death by the Specialized Criminal Court and were beheaded, although the public prosecutor ordered his sentences to be reviewed in August.
The CIC said the royal decree would apply to their cases.
Their lawyers could not be reached for comment.
In 2018, after assuming his post in a palace coup that ousted the previous Crown Prince, MbS promised to minimize the use of the death penalty as part of comprehensive social reforms.
But in 2019, a record number of about 185 people were executed, according to rights groups.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the figures. CIC did not comment when asked about the accuracy of this number.
In a press release on Monday, the HRC said that Saudi Arabia reduced the number of executions by 85% in 2020 compared to the previous year, noting that it had documented 27.
TEST CASE?
In an article published last April, the state newspaper Okaz confirmed the existence of the royal decree, but said the abolition applied only to a minor category of offense under Islamic law known as “ta’zeer”.
These crimes are not clearly defined in the Qur’an or the accompanying Hadiths and therefore punishments are left to the discretion of the judges and can result in death.
Saudi Arabia does not have a civil penal code that sets out conviction rules, and no system of judicial precedent that would make the outcome of cases more predictable based on past practice.
Judges can still sentence children who are offenders to death in the other two categories, according to Saudi Arabian Sharia interpretation: “houdoud”, or serious crimes that entail a prescribed punishment, including terrorism, and “qisas”, or retribution, usually for murder, two lawyers and the rights groups said.
Asked why the royal decree was never published and whether it applies only to the “ta’zeer” offense category, the CIC declined to comment.
Some protest defendants have been prosecuted on terrorism charges.
In a case closely watched by human rights groups, Mohammad al-Faraj, 18, faced the death penalty, although he was 15 at the time of his arrest in 2017 on charges that included participation in related protests and funerals, one of them when he was nine.
Prior to his next hearing scheduled for January 18, a source close to one of the defendants in Faraj’s case said that the requirement for a “houdoud” death sentence had been lifted recently and prosecutors were seeking the most severe punishment under “ta ‘zeer “.
The CIC said that the royal decree would apply retroactively to the case of Faraj, a point that the HRC repeated in its press release.
ESOHR expressed concern that, without a published decree, the risk of the death penalty cannot be ruled out.
ESOHR said that Faraj did not receive a lawyer appointed by the state until October, was not brought to court and was tortured in prison, allegations that the CIC denied.
Since the start of the pandemic, Faraj has been allowed a weekly 15-minute call to his parents, with personal visits canceled, said a source close to the family.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the details of his case.
(Reporting by Raya Jalabi; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington DC; Editing by Mike Collett-White)